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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23771713">The New Job</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sergeant_angel/pseuds/sergeant_angel'>sergeant_angel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fixed Points [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who &amp; Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Gen, Time Travel Shenanigans, additional original characters as babies, beta? idk her, child of companion trope continued, editing? idk her either, established relationship but neither of them know, i mean who understands feeling really, idiots to lovers (sort of), the master has feelings and doesn't understand them, the torchwood gang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:27:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,388</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23771713</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sergeant_angel/pseuds/sergeant_angel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>DR starts a new job. It goes better than she expected.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Master/OFC, jack harkness &amp; donnarose harkness, the master/donnarose harkness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Fixed Points [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686151</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. First Day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>originally posted on tumblr</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her siblings better appreciate this.</p><p>No, that’s silly. She knows they do. That’s why she’s here, all those stories they have of her being around while they were growing up, there to get them ice cream after school, and, apparently, occasionally there as a child herself, didn’t exactly leave her a lot of options.</p><p>Well, only one that didn’t make her into a complete tool.</p><p>Which is why she’s here.</p><p>At MI6.</p><p>As a consultant.</p><p>A consultant who is being ridiculed over by the coffee urn, as if she can’t hear them from three feet away. She’d like to go over there and rip what’s-his-name, C, a new one, but that would be Bad, capital-B-bad. She needs money; Dad had expressly forbidden her from using any of Torchwood’s discretionary funds, and Jake will eventually start sleeping though the night which means Mum and Da will need their spare room back.</p><p>“Oh,” C says, looking past her shoulder. “<em>God</em>.”</p><p>“Yes, thank you,” says the newcomer, ducking his head before plopping down in the seat next to her.</p><p>His presence is the catalyst that gets the meeting started.</p><p>He’s cute, she decides, giving him a smile. He stares at her, all wide brown eyes and impossibly long lashes. A feeling of familiarity tickles the back of her head, like she should know him even though she’s never seen him before. It’s nice, she thinks. Reminds her of home.</p><p>He looks a little stunned as she continues to smile, looking over her head as he swallows so hard she can hear it. This isn't exactly an unusual occurrence—DR is pretty average looking, more<em> solid </em>than anything else but she’s got what Mom calls <em>that Harkness je nais se quoi </em>and DR privately refers to as the “I fucked my way into this mess and I’ll fuck my way out” gene. Zach always snorted and just called it charm. A charming, likable kid, he would say, roughing up her hair. People couldn't help but like her.</p><p>Whatever the reason, it's a thing that follows her around. Cute guy has managed to gather himself in the time it takes her to think all of this. He smiles back, and the feeling that she should know him dissipates. He's just a guy with a nice smile.</p><p>C says a few housekeeping things she doesn’t bother to note before he waves a hand in her direction. “The reason we’re meeting today is to get acquainted with our new consultant, Agent,” he looks at her file, surreptitiously trying to hide the fact he’s got no fucking clue who she is. “Jones. Think of her as a liaison between us and Torchwood.”</p><p>Someone snickers.</p><p>“You’ll primarily be in contact with out horizon watcher, O.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“Hello,” says the man sitting next to her, extending his hand, which she takes. His hands are cool and his skin is dry; he grips her hand like he means it but not like he’s trying to intimidate her. “I’m O.”</p><p>“JJ,” she responds. He smiles a little at that, so DR guesses Izzy was right that JJ sounds less intimidating than DR. “It’s nice to—”</p><p>“Now, we don’t hold with most of the nonsense O here would like us to. That’s what Torchwood and UNIT are for, after all.”</p><p>He says a few more things about her uselessness, thinly veiled rude comments that have O clenching his jaw and the other agents pretending not to laugh.</p><p>DR takes a deep breath, exhaling through her nose. She is older than everyone in this room combined, she reminds herself, and Torchwood doesn’t know she’s here yet. Scathing remarks are inadvisable, no matter how witty.</p><p>O passes her a briefing folder. His hands are nice. He <em>smells </em>nice, too, not like Agent Chad to her other side who smells like he bathed in Axe body spray. Mickey-Dad always told her that was a sure sign of someone to avoid, and it’s a lesson that has served her well.</p><p>O doesn’t look at her again. Agent Chad winks at her. <em>Humans.</em> DR focuses on the papers in front of her.</p><p>The next few hours are jargony and irritating, but, fuck. She’s getting paid, at least.</p>
<hr/><p>“That was <em>exhausting.” </em>DR plops into the chair across from O, scooting her tray out of the way to bury her face in the crook of her elbow. “Or is it just me?”</p><p>“Pretty typical meeting,” O says after a moment, probably trying to figure out what to do with the fact that she invited herself to sit with him. “Might just be you.”</p><p>“Yeah, I guess that’s what happens when a colicky baby keeps you up the whole night,” she mutters, finally drawing her head up.</p><p>“You a mum?” He asks, fork poised over a salad.</p><p>“God, no. Baby brother. I’m helping my folks look after him until things settle down in their house.” O doesn’t ask but DR doesn’t care, pulling up a picture she’d taken of Jake this morning, face smeared with mashed peaches.</p><p>“It’s my god-given right to show pictures of him to complete strangers and make them feel compelled to tell me how adorable he is, even if they don’t care about babies,” she says, sliding her phone across the table and making sure O looks at it. “Look,” she says in her most threatening voice. “Isn’t my little brother the cutest baby you’ve seen.”</p><p>O looks like he’s fighting a smile when he finally looks up to her, passing her phone back. “I feel compelled to tell you that, though I have no experience with children myself, he is the cutest baby I have ever seen.”</p><p>“I know! Isn’t he?” She says, voice considerably brighter.</p><p>
  <em>Ding!</em>
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Missy: going to go poison columbus, care to join dear?</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Missy: I’ll even let you help me pick the poison ;)</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <em> DR: Cant babe, first day at new job</em>
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Missy: Well aren’t you fancy</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Missy: good luck love!</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>“Sorry,” DR looks up at O’s expectant face. “I was--”</p><p>
  <em>Ding!</em>
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Harry: being a politician is BORING</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Harry: I’m going to go kick poor people</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <em> DR: absolutely not. Kick rich people.</em>
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Harry: oh yeah I suppose that will get more media coverage</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Harry: come with?</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <em> DR: you know I love eating the rich but I can’t, at work</em>
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Harry: bullshit</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Harry: your job is to do things with me when I’m bored</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Harry: like now</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Harry: right now</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <em> DR: you are the biggest fucking drama queen</em>
</p><p>
  <em> DR: I am WORKING. </em>
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Harry: fine I’ll come pick you up at work</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <em> DR: for fucks sake no</em>
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Harry: I do not like you having a job</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <em> DR: get over it princess</em>
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>Harry: I do look good in tiaras</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <em> DR: have fun antagonizing the 1% gotta go</em>
</p><p>DR mutes her phone and smiles at O. “Sorry. It’s…” she trails off. “A long story.”</p><p>“No apologies, please. So how did you wind up as a consultant?”</p><p>“Also a long story. Suffice to say, alien encounters run in the family, and I know someone over at Torchwood.”</p><p>“Ah.”</p><p>“You?”</p><p>“I, uh. Grew up on stories about the Doctor. You heard of the Doctor?”</p><p>DR suppresses her instinctual grimace. “Yeah, here and there.”</p><p>“Suppose it’d be hard to work in Torchwood and not know him.”</p><p>DR shrugs, hides a yawn behind her hand. “So, how long have you been working here?”</p><p>“About a year, I think? Not good at keeping track of time, me.”</p><p>“Oh, same. So hard when you have to do things in the right order.”</p><p>O stares at her, head tipped to the side.</p><p>“It’s uh. An alien time travel joke. Torchwood thing.”</p><p>His eyes narrow. “Of course.”</p><p>They eat in silence after that, a little awkward but not the worst she’s ever experienced.</p><p>“C’mon, then,” O says, as if they’ve been having a conversation this entire time. “Let me show you my setup before we go back to debrief.”</p><p>“Won’t C be upset?”</p><p>“Nah, he’ll love any excuse to not talk about aliens for as long as possible.”</p><p>They drop their trays and O leads her farther into the bowels of the building. “So—you’re American?”</p><p>Humans. She smiles fondly. Always the same.</p><p>“More or less.”</p><p>“Sorry, I—I just assumed. Your accent.” He holds a door open for her and DR flashes him a smile.</p><p>“Nah, it’s okay. My Dad’s American but we moved around a lot. A military brat without the military.”</p><p>“Aliens run in the family,” he echoes her from earlier. “UNIT, then?”</p><p>“I’m not really allowed to say.”</p><p>“Of course,” he nods. “Well, this is it.” He gestures to his office.</p><p>It’s messy.</p><p>It reminds her of home. <em>Home </em>home. The Archive.</p><p>Shelves and shelves of books, mostly organized, and piles of papers, pictures tacked haphazardly up on corkboard, transitioning to dry erase and magnets. It’s easy to forget herself, to walk in, examining the photos and newspaper clippings--</p><p>She stops at a photo of broken trees and snowy ground. Oof. She’s never going to live that one down, a very temperamental teenage rebellion and subsequent ship crash and sonic explosion--</p><p>“The Tunguska Event,” O tells her.</p><p>She feels a surge of embarrassment, then pleasure, and a tendril of worry. She’s here, in all this information. Dad, too. And--</p><p>She stops at a photograph of a woman, corseted and bustled, hair piled atop her head and frizzing out in a way that manages to look eccentric and menacing at the same time. She reaches for it, pulling it out from under the magnet that holds it to the board.</p><p>Missy.</p><p>DR’s ears roar as she strokes the paper with her thumb.</p><p>“Do you know her?” O asks, making DR jump. Shit. She’d forgotten he was here.</p><p>“Uh. No. Don’t think so, no. Who is she?”</p><p>O shrugs, but stares like he doesn’t believe her. “No idea. She pops up in some information about the Doctor. Ever met him?”</p><p>DR grinds her teeth behind her smile. “Once or twice.” She walks away before he can continue a whole speech about the Doctor. She doesn't have the fortitude for that right now.</p><p>There’s a picture or two of Dad, and Mom and Da, and what might be a very, <em>very </em>blurry picture of her.</p><p>She should probably be careful around O, but she’s always been bad about discretion.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The Satan Pit/Impossible Planet is one of my favorite episodes so anytime you see a Zach referenced here it's Zachary Cross Flane because I love him so much.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Take Your Daughter to Work</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>DR has to announce her presence to Torchwood eventually, considering she's pretending she works for them.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey, Jack--” someone shouts at her, then stops. “You’re not Jack.”</p><p>“Uh. Well, no, not exactly, Gwen.”</p><p>Gwen stares at her, slack-jawed. “But you—you’re--”</p><p>“How did you get down here?” Tosh demands, aiming a gun at DR.</p><p>“I used? The door?”</p><p>“The one with a bio lock?” Owen snaps. “Oh, come off it. What, do you have one of Jack’s fingers stuffed in a pocket or something?”</p><p>“Ew, no.” DR puts her hands up, figuring it might help to at least pretend to be worried before a thought strikes her. “Hey, is Ianto here? I always wanted to--”</p><p>“Who the hell are you?” A familiar voice interrupts, and DR turns, coming face to face with her Dad.</p><p>Only, not Dad yet. “Oh, goddamn it, kid, seriously?”</p><p>“Look, in all fairness,” DR says, shrugging, hands still up, “I didn’t think you’d be here.”</p><p> </p><p>DR sighs and sticks her arm out for Tosh to stab. “I better not get any bitchy phone calls about this,” she mutters, half to herself. Knowing her luck, she will. Angry phone calls from the future about <em>laying low </em>and <em>what part of stay away from Torchwood was so hard to understand</em>. Which, well, shouldn’t he have already known? It’s not like her presence counts as a surprise. Maybe that’s Dad’s way of dealing with foreknowledge—reverse psychology? DR usually just pretends she doesn’t know anything. Maybe that’s Dad’s take on it, too. She should probably find out.</p><p>She <em>probably </em>should have been more curious about this a hundred years ago, but honestly, when you know you’ve got forever things don’t seem as urgent.</p><p>Owen sticks a band-aid at the bend of her elbow, kind of squinting at her as he does it, trying to figure her out.</p><p>Tosh looks at the results.</p><p>Then again.</p><p>Then asks Owen to have a look, for good measure, only Owen is a lot less subtle.</p><p>“Fuck, are you <em>actually </em>Jack? Or are you a bloody clone?”</p><p>“I'm his <em>daughter</em>, technically, fuck you very much,” DR says, at the end of her rope. “Ah, shit.”</p><p>They’re all staring at her with varying shades of horror and delight.</p><p>“Daughter?” Ianto manages.</p><p>“No, see, these genes are too close a match--”</p><p>Jack pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh, waving his free hand at her. “You explain.”</p><p>DR gulps. Doesn't matter how long it’s been since she was a kid, there’s still something deeply ingrained that still recoils from Dad’s stop-fucking-around voice. “So,” she begins. “I’m from the future, obviously, the distant future, not anytime soon. I’m—I’m pretty close to being a clone, but I have seven genetic markers that are different than Jack's, no idea where they come from still. I have a few guesses, but that’s all they are. You don’t really—he--you--future-Dad, you don’t really talk about <em>how </em>I came into existence, so I don’t know if I was a mistake or planned, if I was your choice or someone else’s, I don’t even know if I came in a tube or if you carried me. But I was a kid, I did have a childhood. And. Um. Yeah. What else did you want to know?”</p><p>Gwen is staring at Jack as she speaks up. “So you’ve met before?”</p><p>Fucking cops.</p><p>“Yeah, we met during World War Two,” DR answers.</p><p>Jack shifts, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling. “She was a spymaster for the OSS.”</p><p>They’re all staring at her.</p><p>"Wait," Ianto leans forward. "Are you trying to tell me you're <em>Vera A-"</em></p><p>Jack clears his throat, interrupting a line of thought DR isn't sure she can actually answer without committing treason. Is it treason if she's not technically a citizen? It's not, it's--</p><p>“Are you—are you like Jack?” Tosh asks.</p><p>DR sighs in relief. That’s an easy one. “Sort of. I come back, so far, but not nearly as fast as he does. That’s one of the reasons I needed to come here—in case I die I need to make sure someone comes and gets my body. I don’t always come back fast. The longest was three weeks, but that was pretty bad all around, I was basically hamburger--”</p><p>Gwen blanches, so DR changes tack. “The shortest was two hours. And I’ve been buried before. I don’t enjoy it.”</p><p>Jack looks stricken. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t be. Not like you planned me taking forever to come back. But, uh. Clawing my way out of a coffin isn’t a highlight. I have--” DR cuts herself off with a shake of her head. “Had, not sure if they’re still around, someone who was keeping tabs on that sort of thing for me.” She can almost feel Missy’s hands pulling her out of the earth, dusting soil from her hair, holding DR close as she sobbed and gasped.</p><p>"Why are you even here?" Dad-not-Dad asks. "Aside from telling us we're in charge of your corpse, should the need arise."</p><p>"Well, I did get a job with MI6 by telling them I worked for Torchwood. Which, technically, I <em>do</em>, just not now."</p><p>Jack looks very unimpressed. "And?"</p><p>"And?"</p><p>"You missed me, didn't you, kid? C'mon, admit it." He's got a huge dumb grin on, and he's not dad, but he's close, kind of like her vodka aunt.</p><p>DR rolls her eyes. Huffs. Acts like a teenager again. "Yeah. Maybe."</p><p>Jack swamps her in a massive hug. "Bring it in, kid."</p><p>“We never did ask,” Gwen interrupts DR’s train of thought. “What’s your name?”</p><p>DR pulls back from dad's shoulder, brushing off the hug and ignoring dad's smirk as she stares at all of them, their expectant faces. “I just want you all to remember that your boss gave me this name before you start making fun if it. Okay?” She takes a breath. “Uh, I'm going by JJ right now, Jack Jones, but my real name is DonnaRose Martha Ianto Harkness. DR for short.”</p><p>Ianto is the first to break the silence. “You’re—you’re named after me?”</p><p>DR shrugs but he’s not looking at her, he’s looking at Jack and they’re both so absorbed in one another they don’t even notice when the rest of the crew starts complaining about the fact that she’s not named after any of <em>them</em>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Is This A Feeling That I Am Feeling?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>There's something not quite right about Agent J Jones, the Master thinks. He should figure out what it is in case she's a trap. It's definitely not because she'd look good bathed in the light of a thousand fires.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What’re you reading?” The Master asks JJ by way of greeting, coming from behind her to sit across. They’ve got matching gyros on their trays today—he takes her tomatoes and passes her his extra feta before she can answer.</p><p>“Koschei,” she says.</p><p>The Master shivers in spite of himself, something strange and—not vulnerable, exactly—passing through him as she continues. “Deathless. Russian folklore.” She shows him the cover of her book.</p><p>It does, indeed, say <em>Deathless</em>. She passes it to him and he sees that it is about the mythical figure Koschei and Soviet Russia, of all things.</p><p>Not a trap then.</p><p><em>Probably </em>not a trap. If it is, it’s a bad trap, since she’s missed several good opportunities to poison him over work lunches.</p><p>Instead, she smiles when she notices the extra feta on her tray. It’s a particularly brilliant smile, one she often gets about food. Different than her <em>silly humans</em> smile or her <em>senior agent made stupid mistake </em>smile. And not her<em> cute animal video</em> smile, either.</p><p>Which he only knows because of <em>scientific observation. </em>He has no reason other than that to know this is her brilliant smile.</p><p>Well, that and the literal brilliance that surrounds everything she does. The burning brightness of her timeline, like standing too close to a bomb. Damaging, but in the best way. Impossible, but clearly not since she’s sitting right in front of him, scrolling through her phone as he pretends to examine her book. She still doesn’t trust him enough yet to tell him what she <em>really </em>is but they’ll get there.</p><p>They’ll get there.</p><hr/><p>“Thank you,” JJ says, relief in her eyes as he drags her toward an empty table by the elbow.</p><p>“What was that all about?”</p><p>“I have no idea,” she confesses. “I don’t even think she knows my whole name. It’s just this...thing. That I have. Where people tell me everything. All their secrets, like I give off some sort of pheromone that says ‘yes, I am the person you should tell all the details of your life to’. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to do anything with them, but it’s not like I want them, either.” She shrugs.</p><p>“You’re a terrible spy,” he observes.</p><p>“Not a spy,” is her retort. “A consultant.” Another shrug. She does that a lot, the Master notes. Shrugs as a deflection, to play human, seem more normal, smaller than she is. “Maybe I just wind up around overshare kind of people.”</p><p>“If it makes you feel better, I have no desire to unburden myself of all my secrets to you.”</p><p>JJ raises her eyebrows at him. He thinks she might be trying to raise just one, going by how one of her eyes sort of squints at him, but she’s unsuccessful. “Really? You have deep dark secrets you don’t want me to know?”</p><p><em>You have no idea</em>.</p><hr/><p>The Master has been watching JJ, off-and-on, for a few weeks now, and he isn’t any closer to understanding her. Her impossible timeline should make her easy to follow and yet he finds himself losing her, losing track of her all the time, days where she seems to vanish. It makes sense if she’s a time traveler but is still frustrating as hell.</p><p>He finds himself becoming more proprietary towards her. He’s greedy of the time she spends at MI6, finds himself glaring at other agents who make crude or cruel comments about her. Usually crude, which is what he expects from humans at this point. At the very least, she’s keeping things interesting. Being Agent O isn’t always the most exciting, even <em>if </em>he can pop off to parts unknown whenever he needs.</p><p>Actually...he <em>hasn’t </em>since JJ showed up. He’s been absorbed enough by the mystery she presents to be content on Earth.</p><p>That what this is, an obsession with a scientific curiosity. Why he feels strangely protective of her, why he longs for her company. This must be what possessed him to <em>ask her out for coffee. </em>She’s just a human! An unusual one, but a human nonetheless! One heart, two lungs, all the requisite organs and joints, as far as he can tell. She doesn’t produce serotonin properly, but that’s easily accounted for and remedied, unlike the white hot irritant of her timeline.</p><p>He’d asked her for <em>coffee</em>.</p><p>The Master still hasn’t decided if he’s going to actually meet her or not—given what he’s learned about her, since they’re friends he could skip out on her once—with a proper excuse—and have it impact their relationship very little. They only know each other well enough for the once, though.</p><p>He is early but she is earlier, browsing books at the store attached to the coffee shop, a stack of brightly colored children’s books tucked in her elbow.</p><p>Something in a tray catches her fancy as she smiles and leans towards it, when the Master’s view is obscured by a man sidling up to JJ, touching her arm, and sort of...towering over her.</p><p>JJ doesn’t like this. She takes a half-step back, smile sharp now, free hand curling into a fist and then uncurling.</p><p>This strange, <em>possessive</em> thing rears up in him again as he watches her, watches her duck out of the man’s grasp and throw words at him. He’s a brute, though, not deterred by words, and while the Master has no doubt about JJ’s ability to defend herself it does seem rather likely to draw the attention of local police, something he’d imagine a person like her wants to avoid.</p><p>This is how he logics through his actions, through the way he strides around the tables laden with books to brush his fingers against her elbow.</p><p>“JJ?”</p><p>“Oh, my god, babe, there you are!” She wraps her arms around his neck as he shoots the brute a glare, a glare that has sent better, braver men pissing to their graves.</p><p>The brute blinks, cowed.</p><p>“Pretend we’re dating,” she hisses, as if he hadn’t already figured that one out.</p><p>“Sorry I’m late,” the Master says, keeping a hand firmly around her hip, glancing down and taking a deep breath. Her pupils are returning to normal; her heartbeat is slowing. She’s relaxing with him here.</p><p>“Text me next time, yeah?”</p><p>“Yeah, sorry--”</p><p>“Okay, let’s go!” She grabs his hand and starts dragging him away, but the smell of her fear lingers on her skin. Something inside the Master snaps into place—or out of place, or--</p><p>Something, regardless of from whence it came, that snarls <em>mine</em>. <em>Mine-mine-mine-mine. </em></p><p>
  <em>Mine-mine-mine-mine. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mine.</em>
</p><p>“Just a minute, love,” he pulls her to a stop, his voice rolling low on the last word. “Were you bothering her?”</p><p>The brute glares. “Now, look--”</p><p>“Because it looked like you were stepping into her space. That you were trying to intimidate her.”</p><p>The brute looks him up and down, clearly not impressed. “You gonna do something about it, mate?”</p><p>“O, come on,” JJ tugs at his hand. “Just leave it.”</p><p><em>I </em>left it, he can practically hear her thoughts. If I can leave it you can.</p><p>“I just want to not be here anymore, ok, O? Come on.”</p><p>She tugs on his hand again and—that <em>feeling</em>, that <em>awareness</em> nearly overwhelms him. That if she wants to leave, that’s more important than his desire for vengeance. Only slightly, but still more important.</p><p>He lets himself be dragged.</p><p>And he thinks how very, very lucky the brute is.</p><p>And then.</p><p>The brute, the idiot, says something, an insult aimed at him and not JJ but she stiffens with it, turning slowly, head cocked.</p><p>“What did you say?”</p><p>The bustle around them in the store has died down, all eyes on the three of them.</p><p>The man opens his mouth, and JJ launches herself over one of the tables, scattering books to the ground as she plows into the brute, cocking her fist back and punching him with a sick, wet crunch.</p><p>The Master grins.</p><hr/><p>“Can’t believe nobody called the cops,” JJ mutters as the Master cleans off her bloodied knuckles. Someone passes her a baggie filled with ice, which she presses to the spectacular black eye blooming all the way down her cheekbone. She worries at her split lip for a second.</p><p>“What would we have said?” It’s the cafe owner, the Master thinks, from next door. “A racist perv is getting his ass kicked?”</p><p>“Sorry about the books,” JJ grimaces at the store owner as he walks in. “I’ll pay for anything I ruined, I have my card here somewhere--”</p><p>“JJ, stop moving,” the Master snaps. There’s less O in it than there should be, enough that she gives him a strange look. “Can’t bandage you if you keep waving your hands about.”</p><p>He wants to devour her. Dig his teeth into her lip until he can taste blood, grip her hand until she whimpers, press rough kisses against her black eye. He wonders if being closer to her would be <em>more </em>painful, if the solidity of her timeline would continue to burn into him or if it would hold steady, or even lessen.</p><p>It takes effort to keep his reprimands caged, to not berate her for stupidity or putting herself in danger. He’s beginning to think it wouldn’t make much of a difference, but the instinct is still there. She put something important to him in danger, nevermind that the thing she put in danger was herself.</p><p>"So," he says instead, dabbing ointment on her knuckles. "Does this happen a lot when you meet people for coffee?"</p><p>Her answering grin splits her lip back open, and the Master can't help but think she looks good like this--bloody, happy, and a little feral.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ohoho why doesn't the Master remember her?? ahhaha!! it's a MYSTERY</p><p>seriously though there's a legit plot reason that i have in order to have amnesia shenanigans. is it a good reason? not really, but this is what we've got.<br/>chapter title vaguely stolen from Galavant<br/>(also Deathless is a real book! check it out from your local library)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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